Raffaele Conti

Raffaele Conti is a Full Professor at the Department of Management at ESSEC Business School and holder of the Senior Chair of Excellence in Strategy and Innovation. His research focuses on how institutions—both formal (laws, regulations) and informal (cultural norms)—shape innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic behavior. He serves as an Associate Editor for Management Science and the Strategic Management Journal.

Education:

• PhD in Management, Università Bocconi (Italy)
• M.Sc. in Economics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain)
• Bachelor's in Political Science, University of Pisa (Italy)

Research Interests: Conti examines the dual roles of institutions in incentivizing innovation and entrepreneurship while addressing societal challenges. Recent work includes studying anti-discrimination laws' impact on entrepreneurship quality, cross-industry spillovers from medical marijuana legalization, and big data analytics' varying effects on firm performance by size. He emphasizes policy implications, such as reducing gender gaps in startup workforces through flexible labor markets.

Key Contributions: His studies reveal how institutions like trade secret laws influence venture capital investments and firm valuations. He also explores how formal and informal institutions interact in stigmatized industries, such as legalized cannabis.

Awards & Roles:

• Senior Chair of Excellence in Strategy & Innovation (CY Initiative)
• Elected Representative-at-large for Strategic Management Society’s Knowledge & Innovation Division
• Associate Editor of leading journals in management and strategy

Future Work: Conti plans to expand experimental methodologies, complementing archival data with lab and field experiments to better understand institutional impacts. He aims to explore cultural bases of intellectual property rights and their cross-country variations.